Court-ordered hours, animal cruelty conviction. Half of us said absolutely not, obviously not, what are we even discussing.

“And the shelter manager at the time said one thing and it decided it. She said: if we won’t have her, where does she go? And whoever she is when she gets there, she’s that person for the rest of her life, and there’s a dog in run six that needs walking either way.”

I asked whether the person had been any good.

“That one? Completely mediocre,” Suneeta said. “Doesn’t like the animals much. Does what she’s told, doesn’t complain, hasn’t missed a Thursday in two and a half years.”

She shrugged. “That’s about eighty percent of what this place needs, honestly. The people who love dogs the most are usually the worst volunteers. They want to sit in the runs and cry.”

I got the bus home thinking about the sentence if we won’t have her, where does she go, and I have not stopped thinking about it, and I want to be careful about what I do with it.